


War is a Game Played with a Smile

by Broadwaysport



Category: Riders Series - Veronica Rossi
Genre: Daryn, Daryn/female OC, Horsemen, Hurt No Comfort, Kidnapping, Kindred, Marcus - Freeform, Mind Games, Pain, Psychological Trauma, SEBASTIAN - Freeform, Samrael, Torture, Whump, female oc - Freeform, light on the shipping though, lots of pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:57:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broadwaysport/pseuds/Broadwaysport
Summary: When Kell had been called as the physical embodiment of War, everything had suddenly made perfect sense. For the first time in her life she had a reason for… everything. The fury. The fights. The simmering rage that had always stretched tight beneath her skin which she had eventually tamed by filling every spare minute of every day with training. With her horse Valkyrie and the sword of War and her long years of training, Kell knows she could take on the armies of heaven and Hell and even give God a bloody nose if she really wanted to. That’s why, even though she’s surrounded by the Kindred in a 5-on-1 standoff Kell grins.This is what I was made for.





	War is a Game Played with a Smile

When Kell had been called as the physical embodiment of War, everything had suddenly made perfect sense. For the first time in her life she had a reason for… everything. The fury. The fights. The simmering rage that had always stretched tight beneath her skin which she had eventually tamed by filling every spare minute of every day with training.

The horse part had been a little weird, but when the flaming red mare had appeared and screamed her rage at the sky, Kell’s own shriek of fury had joined it. She had swung up on the mare’s back and they’d galloped for what felt like hours. Her horse moves as if every single hoofbeat is a mortal blow to the earth beneath them and Kell had never felt more understood than she had in that moment.

With Valkyrie and the sword and her long years of training, Kell knows she could take on the armies of heaven and Hell and even give God a bloody nose if she really wanted to. That’s why, even though she’s surrounded by the Kindred in a 5-on-1 standoff Kell grins. She’s badly tired; the Kindred had been keeping them (Kell, Daryn, Bastion, Marcus) under constant seige in a game of cat and mouse that had gone international several sleepless nights ago. They’d been harried from hideaway to hideaway. With only snatches of sleep between fights and flights, Kell’s senses had been dulled by the sleep deprivation, her patience pushed to its absolute outermost limit as they chased around Italy looking for the final horseman Conquest. She’d felt her cuff beat a staccatto rhythm against her wrist and had followed it into this alley without examining the way the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Two Kindred had closed behind her at the mouth of the alley; two more had blocked the way ahead. Samrael’s emergence from a darkened doorway halfway down the alley, only a few feet in front of Kell, had caused a brief flash of concern (not fear she’s not fucking afraid of him) to cross Kell’s mind but then she’d grinned her wolfish grin and her body sank easily into a loose fighter’s stance.

_This is what I was made for._

As Samrael stares at her, shrouded in more shadow than there should be considering the street lamps at both mouths of the alley, Kell flicks her eyes over his entourage. She considers calling Valkyrie, but the Italian street is really too narrow for the huge mare to make good use of her hooves and teeth. Instead, Kell summons the sword and the armor. The sword blazes to life in her hand first as a column of flame, and it’s a simple effort of will to keep it aflame once the weapon becomes solid and comfortingly heavy in her hand. The swordlight banishes the unnatural shadows of the alley and replaces them with shallow, flickering shadows. She catches some brief emotion (maybe surprise? Not fear, she’s not delusional enough to think that she can make him afraid with such a simple trick) as it flickers across Samrael’s face. Then a spear of bone rises from his wrist, its dull porcelain shining in Kell’s swordlight from beneath a thin layer of brackish dark blood.

She’s seen this trick, one of Samrael’s favorites, but he usually creates small knives that he flicks away from himself faster than the mortal eye can follow. This time he does it slow, making a show of how his skin splits to allow the bone to emerge, how the blood flows from it just a little too thin and a little too dark to be normal blood. He grasps the bone with his opposite hand and instead of drawing a knife he pulls out a sword longer than the length of his forearm. He crafts the grip of his sword with a gruesome crack that makes Kell flinch. He’d definitely done that for her benefit— one of the first memories he had stolen from her had been the memory of her death, the earth-shattering crack of her neck as it snapped. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she manages to suppress a visible shudder. Samrael quirks one side of his mouth into a smile, offers an ironic fencers salute with his blade, and steps into a dueling pose with fluid grace.

Kell steps to Samrael as he begins a wary circle in the narrow alley. His feet make no sound on the cobblestones, he makes no sound at all really, and Kell becomes acutely aware of the slight scuffs and scrapes of her own boots as she moves. Her sword is comfortable in her hand and her heart thumps hard in her chest but it’s excitement she feels, not fear.

Perhaps if she had been a gun nut she’d be shitting herself to be armed with just a sword, but guns are about the only weapons with which Kell isn’t intimately acquainted. Swords, knives, hell even staffs— she’s a certified expert in a half dozen styles for each weapon. Her parents had viewed guns as brutal weapons, but blades? Using a blade well is an art, and they had applauded her dedication to the mastery of that art.

Kell strikes first (of course she does, she’s War), closing quick with a flurry of light swipes. The first exchange for Kell is always a chance to gauge her opponent by dialing up the speed and studying their reactions. As she steps back from her first touch, she knows that Samrael is a far more competent opponent than anyone she’s faced before. He dodges and parries easily, moving his own blade only as much as strictly necessary to deflect her strikes, no movement wasted. Kell sinks in to a slightly deeper stance, balancing on the balls of her feet. She glances at the other Kindred that still block the mouths of the alley.

“Do not worry, they shall not interfere.”

Samrael’s voice is soft and melodious and sounds like it’s coming from just next to her. Kell flinches. The intimate murmur of his voice in her ear, always sounding as if he’s just inches away no matter how much distance is between them, is something she’ll never get used to. She knows Samrael knows this, that he finds every opportunity to do this trick because it pleases him to make her afraid in even the smallest of ways, but she hasn’t managed yet to fortify herself against his mind games.

When Samrael smiles a cold, mocking smile at her, Kell growls and closes again. She strikes harder this time and just as fast. Again Samrael parries and dodges, moving with absolute efficiency to avoid the touch of her steel without once striking back. It’s as if he’s playing with her, or buying time for… something.

Kell disengages and backs away, eyeing the other Kindred once more, searching for the trick they’re going to pull, the trigger that will spring the trap they’re laying. The Kindred have never been ones for drawn out one-on-one duels.

“You seem jumpy, War. Why is that, I wonder?” He stands relaxed, blade pointed at the ground, stance flat-footed, careless. The others stand less casually but true to Samrael’s word they have not moved to interfere in their duel. With a hint of mockery in his voice, Samrael says, “Are you perhaps waiting for dear sweet Daryn to arrive with backup? I will admit it might make this a bit easier for you… but she’s not exactly the heroic rescue type.”

Samrael’s lips twist into a wider, crueler smile as the rage his words ignite in Kell causes her sword’s fire to flare brighter. Kell’s own grin disappears for the first time, becoming a snarl.

“Keep her name out of your mouth you piece of shit.”

The leader of the Kindred closes the distance between them in a blur, striking so quickly that Kell’s eyes can’t follow the movement even though her body reacts. She manages to bring her sword between her body and his strike just barely, and when his bone sword slams into her guard Kell’s arm almost buckles under the weight of the blow. She gasps but there’s no time to think because he’s already moving again, faster than should be possible. She catches another heavy blow with her sword before she manages to maneuver to deflect his attacks without taking them head-on. Every clash saps a fraction of Kell’s strength and within the space of a scant few heartbeats her arms are shaking and her fingers have gone numb around the swords grip. Samrael’s face never loses its relaxed smile and Kell realizes perhaps by the time she had thought to search for the Kindred’s trap she had already been well and truly caught in it.

It takes an agonizing two minutes for Kell to finally feel like she’s getting the measure of Samrael’s furious attack. He advances steadily but in small increments, looking for all the world like a (unreasonably sinister) gentelman out for an evening stroll as his arm flashes around her in light, easy gestures that, when they land, hit hard enough that the shockwave of the impact travels up her arm and down the length of her spine. Kell retreats across the uneven cobbles, vaguely aware that she’s fast approaching the end of the alley where two of the others wait for her but unable to do anything about it because Samrael refuses to allow her to circle away from him. But as her mind adjusts to the speed and ferocity of his attacks, she finally sees it: the opening in the rhythm of his swings, the opportunity for her to slip her sword through his guard and return to the attack. Kell readies herself for the thrust, steps forward—

A sensation like long-nailed fingers running rough through her hair and across her scalp hits her like a physical blow. Kell stumbles hard, a shudder crawls down her spine. Samrael laughs as she barely gets her sword in place to block his next swing, a fast and vicious attack that follows his mental assault with no pause for her to catch her breath or regain her footing. Kell stumbles again with the force of his strike, grunting with the effort of remaining on her feet.

“Is something wrong, Kellen? You were doing so well.”

“Stay out of my head!”

When Kell had stumbled away from Samrael’s swipe at her ribs, the force of his hit had sent her sideways. Now as he renews his attack, she counts herself lucky to be able to finally edge sideways around him until he’s forcing her back towards the other end of the alley. She’s blocking his strikes clumsily now, catching their full force on the length of her blade and she almost wonders if her sword will shatter, if Samrael is even attacking her with his full strength. Her heels catch the cobblestones as she retreats from his steady advance. She’s off-balance. Desperate.

Retreating.

Again she sees an opening and lunges for it and this time his mental attack is swift and brutal. A sudden stabbing pressure behind Kell’s eyes buckles her knees. Kell hits the ground hard, half-blind with the pain, already rolling because she doesn’t need her eyes to know that Samrael is already striking at her again. She distantly hears his blade crash into the cobblestones just inches from her face.

The pain pulses behind her eyes and then suddenly it’s gone but it doesn’t matter because now she’s down, scrambling backwards pulling herself along with one hand as her legs kick frantically for traction and her exhausted sword arm bears the brunt of Samrael’s abuse. The sword’s fire is out now, forgotten but she doesn’t have the energy to maintain it anyway. She’d also forgotten the environment around her. She sees the delight flash in Samrael’s eyes a second before her back slams into the brick facade of a quaint little Italian building.

The sharp point of the bone sword slides past her clumsy guard and stops with dizzying suddenness just before it touches the red gemlike surface of the Horseman armor that protects her chest. For a second the only sound in the alley is the harsh rasp of her laboring breath, then all sound fades as the pressure of Samrael’s mind on hers blots out the world. He takes her back to the moment she’d first summoned the armor. He lets her enjoy the memory of that elation she’d experienced at the armor’s appearance, pausing just long enough for Kell to understand what he’s going to do next. Then his presence lifts and Kell slams back into her exhausted body just in time for that needle-sharp spear of bone to thrust brutally through the carapace of the armor and drive into the meat of her shoulder.

Kell screams breathlessly with the pain. The cracked armor flickers and then vanishes as she loses her hold on it. Samrael yanks his weapon out of her and steps back, tilting his head to her in a small nod.

“First touch to me,” he notes.

“Fuck you,” Kell snarls, shoving herself to her feet and ignoring the soft patter of her blood dripping from her numb fingertips. He’d taken her weaker arm, leaving her sword arm unharmed. He wants to draw this out, and Kell can’t figure out why but she’s starting to think she might need to get some serious distance between herself and this monster.

“Are you ready for round two, or shall I give you a minute?”

Kell bares her teeth, jaw clenched against another groan of pain. She can’t catch her breath, her heart thunders so hard and fast that Kell thinks it might almost be a mercy for it to stop for a bit, to give her some peace and quiet. Kell’s legs shake and the sword feels too heavy for her to carry. She stands there, backed against the wall bleeding and exhausted, and glances at the ends of the alley with more than a little desperation. It might be prudent to consider a full retreat.

“Oh, look,” Samrael says to the other Kindred, “she’s finally realizing how outmatched she is.”

The four others laugh. Fear flares cold and overwhelming through the ever-present rage that boils under Kell’s skin. There’s no time to be clever about it, she knows now that it had been time to call Valkyrie the second she had stepped foot in the alley but better late than never. Kell reaches for the well of flame that houses the mare in her heart. She can feel her Horse reaching back for her, eager to bite and kick and rage—

Kell’s head rocks back and slams against the brick wall behind her hard enough that her knees buckle for a second time. She drops to the cobblestones and just barely catches herself on her hands, thinking dimly that without her armor the stones beneath her really fucking hurt before Samrael’s mental invasion forces her down, down, down into his tunnel of darkness. She can hear herself screaming but it’s far away and she can’t make herself stop.

“No running, Kellen.”

Samrael’s voice wriggles through her mind like a thousand snakes. She wonders if her body is clawing at her temples because at this moment Kell would gouge her own eyes out if it meant she could get that voice out of her brain. Samrael chuckles and she writhes again and then he releases her abruptly. Her whole body feels like she’s been chewed up and spit out by some vicious beast. Kell is curled up on the cobblestones, bleeding from her wounded shoulder but now also her nose and her mouth because at some point she bit her tongue and nosebleeds are just something that happens when Samrael’s mind rape is involved. She feels like he held her for hours this time but she knows in reality it was probably only minutes.

“War doesn’t run from a fight,” Samrael taunts, “that’s what cowards do.”

Kell spits blood and forces herself to her hands and knees. She’s shaking so badly she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to stand but she’s not going to let this fucker keep her on the ground.

“I wasn’t aware you were a coward, Kell.”

“Shut _up_,” Kell snarls, shoving herself to her feet. She immediately regrets speaking; the fear is naked in her voice.

She reaches for Valkyrie again and there’s nothing there— no well of rage, no flame, no horse.

Alone.

She’s alone.

Once more the sensation of fingers running through her hair and she almost wishes it was the pain again because the pain at least doesn’t make her feel so fucking violated—

“Oh no, Kellen, you don’t get to take the easy way out. Not this time.”

Samrael blurs and he’s _right there_, his sword of bone swinging toward her ribs so fast she can hear it whistle through the air and she can barely summon even the sword in the midst of her terror and pain and exhaustion. The weight, familiar and once comforting but currently almost more than she can bear, settles into her hand a split second before Samrael’s weapon crashes into it and collapses her flimsy guard. His swing (so casual, so lazy on his part) follows through the collapse of her defense and slams into her ribs with a sound like a baseball bat hitting a sack of flour. Kell grunts and falls to the side, once more in the center of the alley. She’s down on one knee struggling to breathe, scrambling to regain her feet because she knows he’s coming for her once more.

“You can’t run now. You’ve _earned_ this,” Samrael snarls, malice entering his voice for the first time as he attacks her again in earnest.

He fights dirty. Every time Kell manages to find a rhythm in the back and forth, Samrael jabs at her mind. Sometimes it’s just enough to make her flinch, sometimes he’s so vicious that her vision fades and her extremities go numb. Every mental strike is punctuated with a physical blow, alternating between using the flat of the blade to leave bone-deep bruising on her arms, her legs, her ribs, and using the sharp point to pierce her with surgical precision. The pain surpasses Kell’s threshold and still she continues fighting, her body reacting on autopilot, albeit sluggishly, as her mind drifts in a dull haze.

She’s reminded of her days with her kendo master. She’d come to him with certificates and belts proclaiming her mastery of several hand-to-hand arts hanging on her wall back home and a fresh trophy from the most recent fencing championships joining the dozens of identical trophies on her shelf and her eyes bright with pride and fury. He had humbled her immediately and with a cold viciousness that she had admired even as she hated him for it.

Samrael plucks the memory from her mind in an almost delicate use of his power. Kell missteps and her ankle rolls with a griding crunch. She pitches to the side, gasping.

“Is that what this is? Am I humbling you?” There’s laughter in Samrael’s voice. Then his mind covers her once again with smothering force.

Kell doesn’t have the breath to scream as the pain leeches the remaining strength from her limbs until she couldn’t move so much as a finger even if the Kindred were to retreat before she draws her next breath. Samrael draws her into the darkness so deep that she only faintly feels her body struggling to even breathe. He closes the distance between them unhurried as he forces her to relive every moment of their fight in which Samrael had bested her. Kell groans through gritted teeth, twitching as the Kindred kneels next to her and places one hand on her forehead. The paper-dry coolness of his fingers feels more real to her than her own beating heart in that moment.

_Am I humbling you?_

“No,” Samrael breathes, and there’s almost respect in his voice, “this has not humbled you.”

The darkness deepens even further and Kell knows that if Samrael removes his hand from her head she’ll never find her way back from this.

“I don’t think you need humbled, Kellen. I enjoy you just the way you are.”

Flashes of the past swirl around her— riding Valkyrie and screaming her throat raw at the night sky, winning a sparring match by delivering a brutal beatdown, turning into a feral, flailing whirlwind of a child at 8 years old when confronted by teenage bullies.

“But since you have chosen to stand against me, you must be broken.”

He almost sounds like he regrets it. Then the pressure in Kell’s brain doubles down and everything is cold agony.

He finds everything. Every moment that has ever made her feel small, vulnerable. Every secret she’d ever kept. He finds the abuse at home, which she’d known he would. It’s low-hanging fruit. He re-lives the worst of it with her, every second of it, and for all that it rips her to shreds Kell forces herself to watch. To feel. As a child what had happened to her made her so angry, so furious, that she had been like a pot boiling over, burning anyone who got too close. She tries with desperation to rekindle the rage that had kept her warm back then.

He finds the foster parents who had loved her and Kell thought for sure he would skip this, surely there’s nothing there. But Samrael has excellent instincts and he studies with interest the memories of how Kell had repaid the kindness of the family that had chosen her. She’d used hurtful fists, cutting words. These scenes she does look away from, shame roiling through her but shame isn’t anger and she can’t use it. Samrael tsks with mock disappointment in his voice as they re-live a memory of Kell reducing her adopted father to tears. The memory reduces Kell herself to a similar state. Her family had loved her, had found her a way to live with the fury that she couldn’t let go of and how had she repaid them? She wonders for the first time if they’ll think she ran away from them after all this time or if they’ll assume that the worst had happened. She’d dreaded the impossible explanations she would have to give upon her return from this adventure, but for the first time she wonders what will happen if there is no return.

Samrael had just gotten to the memories of Daryn. He shuffles through the surface memories, lingering on one where Kell had gotten a good long look at the silver key that hangs around her neck. Fear flares through Kell because that’s it thats what he wants he wants the key and he knows where it is now but Samrael merely smiles a small, hard smile and moves on. He’s after a different objective now. He’s finding the deeper things, the ones that will hurt Kell on a personal level. He finds the kiss. And he grins.

“Kell!”

Daryn’s scream filters to Kell as if Kell is at the bottom of a very deep pool of water. She sounds upset.

“Kell, get up!”

Samrael unfolds himself from his position where he had crouched over the girl who housed the spirit of War, looking every bit like a vampire leaving a drained victim. The Seeker looks extremely upset, which of course is exactly what he wants. She and the other two Horsemen, Famine and Death, stand at the near end of the alley. Death summons his Scythe and the two Kindred guarding that end of the alley back toward Samrael and the girl. The Seeker puts a hand on Death’s shoulder and shakes her head. He doesn’t put the Scythe away but he does restrain himself from entering the alley.

Samrael leaves War crumpled at his feet but he pulls her from the depths of her mind a bit— just enough to make her hurt again. She groans raggedly and her body begins to tremble and shake as if a current runs through her.

At Kell’s groan Daryn takes an involuntary step forward and this time it’s Marcus who puts his hand on her shoulder to stop her from entering the alley. She shrugs it off angrily.

“Kell should not have been alone,” Daryn says, voice tight with fear.

Marcus’s reply, “Hindsight,” sounds downright relaxed in comparison

“I could help, maybe,” Bas ventures. “If I make her sleep she won’t be in pain at least. I’ve been on the receiving end of Samrael’s talent. It was unpleasant.” His face looks pale in the lamplight.

“She needs to be able to fight once we break Samrael’s hold. We can’t carry her dead weight.”

Marcus is right about that but Daryn has a bad feeling in her gut that Kell is not going to be in any shape to fight even if they can free her mind. How long had she been at the mercy of the monsters?

Samrael has remained motionless over Kell’s twitching form but now he tilts his head slightly to one side.

“Are you ready to negotiate, Seeker?”

Daryn tears her eyes away from Kellen and she grates out, “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Samrael’s teeth glint as he grins.

“You know, as much as I want that key, I was almost hoping you would say that. I’ve been slow to realize it, I’ll admit, but little War is quite fun.” His voice grows wistful as he continues, “Such pride… Breaking her is an amusing dalliance to say the least.”

Samrael doesn’t move but he does something because Kell spasms and screams until she’s literally foaming at the mouth. A moment later she sags limp, flat on her back, chest heaving with huge gulping breaths. The silence stretches into the Italian night and Daryn feels like she might burst when the tension cranks up to astronomical levels. Her arms break out in goosebumps as all five of the Kindred stiffen simultaneously, faces all twitching slightly to look in identical directions as if they’ve heard a sound Daryn herself cannot hear. Samrael gives a _tch_ of annoyance and grabs Kell by the throat, hauling her upright and hoisting her off the ground. She gags and clutches weakly at his arm.

“Unfortunately our time here is short. The key, Seeker, or sweet Kellen dies.”

It takes every ounce of self-control she has for Daryn to school her voice into the cold steel she needs for her reply.

“Go ahead. A new War will be called and you still won’t have the key.”

Marcus and Sebastian whirl to Daryn but she keeps her eyes leveled on Samrael. If he calls her bluff she doesn’t know how she’ll live with herself now. _Keep the key safe_, Daryn repeats to herself, _if they get the key we’ll all be better off dead. The key is all that matters now, don’t think about Kellen dying in this alley. Dont think about how it’s your fault. The key is all that matters._

Somehow, impossibly, the Kindred smiles wider.

\-- 

Daryn’s words hit Kell like a sucker punch. Her hands drop from Samrael’s arm as all the fight abruptly leaves her. There’s a slight pressure behind her eyes but compared to what she has already been through tonight it barely registers as pain. What does hurt is the way he repeats Daryn’s words again and again and again in that dark place.

_Go ahead, a new war will be called. Go ahead. Go ahead. Kill her, it would be better for everyone. A new War would be better. This one’s broken anyway._

For the first time in her life, Kell wants to die.

\--

“Thank you for that, Seeker,” Samrael hisses with barely contained glee. Kell hangs motionless in his grip and Daryn and Marcus and Sebastian can see now that there’s blood everywhere. She looks small, and wounded more deeply than they could have ever imagined.

Samrael lowers Kell to the ground and makes a show of getting her balanced on her own two feet. She sways and then her knees buckle and he catches her, sweeping her into his arms as if she weighs nothing at all. Still he grins and grins at them.

“Whoops! Guess I played a little rough with Kellen earlier, but you all know how she can be.” Samrael looks down at the girl folded in his arms with exaggerated fondness and that, more than anything, is what turns Daryn’s stomach. Samrael looks back up at them, at her, and grins again. There are too many teeth in that smile. It’s too sharp. Darkness boils up from the ground, rising like thick smoke to cover the Kindred.

“I have to go now, Seeker. Since it seems you’re done with this War, I think I’ll be keeping her. Don’t worry, I happen to quite enjoy her, so she’ll be safe and sound with me.” He pauses a moment as the darkness swallows him completely and then adds, “Well, she’ll be alive at least.”

When the darkness clears seconds later, they can still hear Samrael’s laughter echoing down the empty alley.


End file.
